By Dr Jari Louhelainen When Russell Edwards first approached me in 2011, I wasn’t aware of the massive levels of interest in the Ripper case, as I’m a scientist originally from Finland. But by early this year, when I realised we were on the verge of making a big discovery, working on the shawl had taken over my life, occupying me from early in the morning until late at night. It has taken a great deal of hard work, using cutting-edge scientific techniques which would not have been possible five years ago. To extract DNA samples from the stains onRead More

Michaelmas is celebrated on 2 dates of the year. They are the dates that the Ripper went out to murder his victims. There were numerous newspaper reports stating that a garment was discovered that had ‘Michalemas daisies and golden lillies’ at the murder scene of Catherine Eddowes on the night of the ‘Double Event’.Read More

As has already been pointed out, the ‘Whitechapel murders’ did not just consist of the crimes attributed to Jack the Ripper and there has been much debate as to whether any of the others could have been committed by him. In fact, the blame for any act of random violence against women would at that time be, for a moment at least, firmly laid at the feet of the Ripper. Two murders, subsequent to that of Mary Kelly, did have many guessing, however.Read More

A tiny trace of DNA on a Victorian shawl could reveal the true identity of one of the world’s most notorious murderers. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Save SaveRead More

Jack the Ripper mystery solved? Have researchers finally uncovered the identity of Jack the Ripper? Russell Edwards, author of Naming Jack the Ripper, said he has compiled evidence of who the world’s most famous serial killer really was. Along with Dr Jari Louhelainen, a Research Scientist at Liverpool John Moores University, Mr Edwards has examined a shawl taken from one of the murder scenes and identified DNA belonging to Aaron Kosminski, the man they have now named as Jack the Ripper. This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on Sunday 7 September 2014. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0266szr/player SaveRead More

Except taken from ‘Naming Jack the Ripper’ by Russell Edwards It is just another phase: the East End has been through so many incarnations over the centuries. But the most interesting time to me is the 1880s, the era that spawned the Ripper Murders. In those times the neighbourhoods of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, as well as nearby districts like Bethnal Green, St George in the East and Poplar, had some of the most scandalously poor living conditions in London. The East End was, in parts, a vast, dirty, overcrowded slum, struggling to cope with the sheer number of people choosing to live there. Much of this was downRead More

For centuries the East End had been a great melting pot, and until this massive flood of immigrants it had dealt well with incomers, but now it was stretched to breaking point, and anyone who could afford to move away did, leaving a population who were, by and large, scraping by. Survival was the key, food and lodging the most important aims. Typhoid, cholera and venereal disease were rife, and the area had the highest birth rate, the highest death rate and the lowest marriage rate in the whole of London. Housing was the big problem. Whereas parts of Whitechapel and Spitalfields had once been prosperous and semi-rural, demand throughoutRead More

Allow me to introduce myself to you. My name is Aaron Kosminski. You won’t know me by name…yet. I was born in 1865 in Poland. In the early 1880s my family escaped the Russian pogroms, and we were lucky to take refuge in London, where I lived together with my two brothers and sister in Greenfield Street, E1. A hairdresser by trade, I suffered serious mental illness – probably paranoid schizophrenia – and was prone to auditory hallucinations and sexual ‘self-abuse’. My erratic behaviour was known to police in the area, I was even put under 24-hour surveillance until IRead More

The most infamous murdering spree in London history has finally been solved 126 years after it occurred – at least, according to author Russell Edwards. In his new book “Naming Jack the Ripper,” which releases this Tuesday, Edwards details how a shawl bearing the serial killer’s blood led him to DNA evidence that proves Aaron Kiminski – one of six suspects whittled down over the years – was the man behind the 1888 killing spree that terrorized London’s East End. Kiminski was a Polish immigrant who lived in Mile End Old Town and was eventually admitted to a string ofRead More